A strangely hungry Mummy

Mum's always ravenous these days.

Sure, we know that women are supposed to be perpetually peckish during their pregnancies. But Mum never did have any food cravings, or even a marked increase of appetite, during those nine months. In fact, she had a painfully boring time of it, with no morning sickness, no flashes - heck, not an outbreak of freckles. But with Sonny now almost hitting the four-month mark, Mum's experiencing hunger pangs in the worst way. She'll scarf down a full rice-and-three-veg meal, then murder a burger to boot. A few hours later, it's snack time.

Actually, it's never not snack time.

It's no big mystery, we suppose. Mum's providing a ceaseless supply of milk for our little one, and all those nutrients need replacing. But Pa still isn't used to seeing Mum out-eat him, especially since the time for that is supposed to have passed with Sonny's eviction from her belly. Of course, Mum's careful to tell Pa that she still rigorously schedules gym sessions and isn't feeling any more out of breath after her treadmill runs. But there really isn't any reason for her to apologise for not keeping to the expected "hunger" timetable.

Indeed, broadly speaking, why should we ever feel pressure to conform to 'standard' schedules for all sorts of things, from "good marriageable age", to "childbearing years", to "lunchtime"? All right, at times there are good biological or scientific reasons. But in many things, history has left us with timetables that we are at liberty to vary, so long as there's a leavening of common sense. To give just one example, is there such a thing as "the right time to leave home and move into your own apartment"? There isn't, surely, though there may be excellent push factors in specific cases. Different expectations apply in different societies, and multi-generational households can work well too.

So Mum's going to keep on guzzling, until her appetite returns to normal. That might happen at any time, and abruptly. At that point, she might well look back wistfully on the time she could sample so many dishes in one meal, yet retain space for dessert.

Always look on the bright side, we always say.